Salon.com > Mitch Stacy

Mom accused of killing 2 kids showed signs of drug use

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:16:00 +0000

Police say the Florida woman accused of killing her two teenagers showed signs of drug impairment after a November car crash.

A Florida Highway Patrol report released Monday said Julie Powers Schenecker had dilated pupils with no reaction to light and "mush-mouthed speech" after she hit a vehicle towing a trailer.

Officers didn't do a field sobriety test because she was taken to the hospital. When officers went to the hospital to obtain a blood sample, Schenecker had already checked out.

She was charged with careless driving.

Schenecker appeared in court Monday on two first-degree murder charges. She is accused of killing 16-year-old Calyx and 13-year-old Beau last Thursday. She was found Friday by police sitting on her back porch, covered in blood.

Police said she told detectives that she shot the children because they were "mouthy."

Two Florida officers, suspect killed in firefight

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:17:00 +0000

Authorities and a fugitive holed up in an attic fired more than 100 shots at each other Monday in a firefight that killed two officers, wounded a deputy U.S. marshal and led to an hourslong standoff that ended when the suspect was found dead inside the home.

St. Petersburg Police spokesman Michael Puetz said the suspect was found dead when officers went into the home Monday afternoon, about six hours after the shootout, the latest in a recent rash of shootings across the nation that have killed or wounded law enforcement officers.

The law enforcement agents came to arrest Hydra Lacy Jr., 39, around 7 a.m. on an aggravated battery charge, and investigators believe he is the one who opened fire on them, Puetz said. They had not confirmed Lacy was the shooter.

He said Lacy had a long record that includes convictions for armed robbery and sexual battery. He was listed as a sex offender with the state and had failed to register in December with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department as required.

"He was somebody we wanted to get off the streets, " Police Chief Chuck Harmon said. "Who expects to walk into a house and get gunfire from the attic?"

Harmon would not identify the dead officers pending notification of their relatives.

Minister: 9/11 Quran burnings will go forward

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:07:00 +0000

The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said Wednesday he was determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off.

"We are still determined to do it, yes," the Rev. Terry Jones told the CBS Early Show.

Jones says he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a .40-caliber pistol strapped to his hip since announcing his plan to burn the book Muslims consider the word of God and insist be treated with the utmost respect. The 58-year-old minister proclaimed in July that he would stage "International Burn-a-Quran Day."

Supporters have been mailing copies of the holy text to his Gainesville church of about 50 followers to be incinerated in a bonfire on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Kabul, took the rare step of a military leader taking a position on a domestic matter when he warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan -- and around the world -- to inflame public opinion and incite violence."